Ban the Bomb II

In our hearts many of us already live in a post-nuclear era. We so yearn to be free of
nuclear fear that our imaginations have leaped ahead to the future. With the menacing
dangers of the 1980s seemingly past, we no longer even think of the bomb. We want to
believe the president when he says that our children really can sleep safely at night.

But troubling realities intrude and shatter our dreams of security. Nuclear tests in
India and Pakistan. Israel's formidable nuclear arsenal amidst the cauldron of Middle East
tension. Atomic ambitions in Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Continuing doubts about the
security of nuclear weapons in traumatized Russia. While the threat of thermonuclear
attack on the United States has diminished, the risks of nuclear weapons being used
somewhere in the world are probably greater now than at any time in the nuclear age.

The United States is a major part of this huge problem, with nuclear weapons as the
cornerstone of U.S. defense policy. The U.S. nuclear arsenal stands at approximately
15,000 weapons, and even after all currently planned reductions are completed (in the year
2007 or later) the United States will retain some 10,000 nuclear bombs. More ominously,
the role of the bomb in U.S. military doctrine has expanded, and the potential uses of
nuclear weapons have multiplied. A December 1997 Presidential Decision Directive extended
the role of nuclear weapons to permit their use against countries possessing chemical and
biological weapons, against nations with "prospective access" to nuclear
weapons, and even against "non-state actors." Under this extraordinary but
little noticed doctrine, nuclear weapons can now be used against so-called "rogue
states" or terrorist groups suspected of possessing weapons of mass destruction.
Nuclear weapons, far from fading away, have taken on frightening new roles and seem
destined to remain a permanent and increasingly central element of U.S. military strategy.

In response to these alarming trends, a new citizen's movement for nuclear sanity is
emerging. This new movement is avowedly abolitionist in purpose, consciously drawing a
moral parallel to the earlier historic struggle against slavery. The new abolition
movement is based as much on hope as fear. It sees the end of the Cold War and collapse of
the Soviet Union as a golden opportunitywhat Jonathan Schell has termed "the
gift of time"to achieve a future free of terror and the fear of annihilation.
The new movement is motivated by a passionate yearning to escape the untenable moral
dilemma of a defense policy predicated on the threat to annihilate tens of millions of
innocent people.

MANIFESTATIONS OF THIS NEW movement are evident among former officials and prominent
experts. The leading voice is that of Gen. Lee Butler, former commander of U.S. nuclear
forces, who in December 1996 stunned the arms control community and the political
establishment with an eloquent speech at the National Press Club calling for the complete
elimination of nuclear weapons. Butler was joined by 60 retired generals and admirals from
the United States, Russia, and other countries in an appeal for nuclear abolition. In
January 1998 more than 120 world leaders released an additional statement urging
abolition. Among the signatories were 52 past or present presidents and prime ministers.
Both statements were organized by the State of the World Forum under the direction of
former Sen. Alan Cranston, who has played a central role in the emerging nuclear abolition
movement. Other recent actions include:

In July 1996 the International Court of Justice in the Hague declared that the nuclear
weapons states have an obligation to negotiate in good faith for nuclear disarmament.

In August 1996 the prestigious Canberra Commission released a detailed report arguing
for a step-by-step process toward the elimination of nuclear weapons.

In December 1997 the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution urging negotiations for
a convention to outlaw nuclear weapons.

Last June eight nations issued a joint declaration calling for a world free of nuclear
weapons.

As welcome as these international efforts may be, they are no substitute for political
pressures within the United States. The United States first developed and used the bomb,
and it has a special responsibility to end the nuclear threat. If American political
leaders can be convinced to support abolition, other nations will follow suit.

Bringing about such a change will require a massive mobilization of grassroots
awareness and pressure. However valuable the many elite statements for disarmament, these
declarations are not sufficient to overcome the entrenched power of the nuclear
establishment. Politicians will not act unless they are pressured to do so by an informed,
articulate, and well-organized citizen constituency. Public opinion polls show widespread
support for denuclearization, but this sentiment must be turned into active citizen
involvement if change is to occur.

FORTUNATELY there are encouraging signs of re-emerging nuclear activism in the United
States. Perhaps the most striking manifestation of this new movement is the statement
"The Morality of Nuclear Deterrence," organized by Pax Christi USA and signed by
nearly 100 U.S. Catholic bishops. Issued in June 1998, the Pax Christi statement
challenges the moral and political validity of deterrence in light of the end of the Cold
War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The statement urges the United States and other
nuclear weapons states "to enter into a process leading to the complete elimination
of these morally offensive weapons." "Nuclear deterrence as a national policy
must be condemned as morally abhorrent," the bishops' statement declares. "We
urge all to join in taking up the challenge to begin the effort to eliminate nuclear
weapons now, rather than relying on them indefinitely."

Other evidence of renewed disarmament activism can be seen at the grassroots level.
Dozens of cities and towns have passed resolutions in favor of nuclear abolition. More
than 120 people attended the conference "Bottling the Nuclear Genie" in Chicago
in October 1998. Some 300 people attended an abolition conference in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, in October 1997. One of the most interesting recent actions was the Vermont
Walk for Nuclear Abolition, organized in August 1998 by the American Friends Service
Committee. The Walk began with a August 15 rally of 200 people in Montpelier and continued
for seven days with about 100 people trekking 93 miles to Springfield. Along the way
walkers distributed flyers informing local taxpayers how much of their income taxes are
spent on nuclear weapons, an amount which in some towns equals half the local municipal
budget.

Also in New England local groups are planning to bring the nuclear abolition issue to
local town meetings. For the first time in history, Americans will have an opportunity to
vote on getting rid of nuclear weapons. In March 1999 voters in 22 communities in Vermont
and Maine will be asked to consider a resolution urging the elimination of nuclear
weapons. The same resolution will be brought to additional New England town meetings in
the year 2000. The nuclear freeze movement began in a similar way in the early 1980s, when
local organizers in New England succeeded in winning support for the idea of a bilateral
freeze on the arms race. Today a similar tactic is being employed to address the question
of abolishing nuclear weapons altogether.

In October 1998 more than 50 people from 25 national and regional organizations,
including Sojourners, gathered in Chicago to discuss the creation of a U.S.-based nuclear
abolition campaign. The assembled organizers agreed on the need for an abolition campaign
and formed an interim coordinating committee to create the necessary decision-making
structure and program strategy. Many of the participants expressed enthusiasm for a
proposal from Jonathan Schell to build wide public support for a simple resolution,
"Resolved: that it should be the policy of the United States government to proceed
speedily to a world without nuclear weapons, and to work actively with other governments
to achieve this goal by a time certain." Under the Schell plan, peace groups would
approach civic organizations of every kind and ask that they ratify the resolution and
appoint an ongoing committee to work actively for nuclear abolition.

The task of changing U.S. policy will be a long and difficult one, requiring a
multiyear campaign of persistent commitment. The post-nuclear age that we yearn to see
will not arrive without determined citizen action. The times are ripe for such a movement,
though, and the concept of abolition is gaining legitimacy. We have "the gift of
time," but there is also a race against time as nuclear storm clouds threaten. Let us
seize the opportunity before us to make a new beginning toward a safer and more secure
world without nuclear weapons.

DAVID CORTRIGHT is president of the Fourth Freedom Forum and former executive director
of SANE.

For more information on nuclear abolition and the work of David Cortright, check out these sites:

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